I have been using Ubuntu since 9.04 without many (serious) problems, I installed the 10.10 CD and put it on a flash drive (after a while or looking through the web to realize that the startup disk creator breaks with maverick. Anyway, when I booted from flash, it would get completely stuck (no cursor, no blinking line at the top, just nothing!). So I went back to my lucid install and did a "update-manager -d". When the upgrade was done, i rebooted, and was faced with the same problem again. I had to manually edit the "grub.cfg" file to set the lucid old kernel as default. Again I was faced with a new problem: virtualbox couldn't find the kernel files because upgrading the kernel deleted some files that were required.

What I need to know is if there is a way to upgrade from lucid to maverick without the new kernel (I still don't understand why it broke, but oh well!)

Maybe you can find why it crashes(?) with the new kernel by reading the log files? (Or ask somebody else to look at them, if you don't know what to look for.)
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JanCOct 30 '10 at 0:47

Sure, i can send log files to people who could help, you just need to let me know what to send. I like the new features in maverick, and would really like to keep it if i can
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Wishing StarOct 30 '10 at 8:10

I think you should revise this question on fixing your original problem (people will tell you what logs to attach, etc.) so we can get to the root of your problem.
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Jorge CastroNov 1 '10 at 20:09

4 Answers
4

I would recommend opening a bug (type ubuntu-bug linux) and trying to get the Maverick kernel fixed instead.

But, if you absolutely cannot avoid it, and need to run the Lucid kernel on a Maverick userspace, you will need to manually install (and update!) the Lucid kernel (as well as its headers, for VirtualBox). Here is the procedure I would recommend:

If you are frustrated by upgrades, then why do it? It sounds like you are a good candidate for LTS only and not follow the six month upgrade cycle.

Lucid has 2 1/2 more years of support which is one more than Maverick which just came out. You can get newer packages by enabling backports in Lucid and keep your old kernel.

I sense more frustration to come because if you upgrade successfully to Maverick then you will be forced to upgrade every six months till the next LTS or do a fresh installation at some point, when you could just upgrade once from LTS to LTS. Just something to consider.

Thank you for answering so quickly antman, however, this is basically the same thing I am doing now with editing the grub.cfg file isn't it? plus, I've always installed ubuntu on one partition (using entire disk) and I would feel better keeping up this practice, do I have any other options?
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Wishing StarOct 29 '10 at 19:18

Thanks wishi, what i would like to know is if there is an option to disable upgrading the kernel with running "update-manager -d"??
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Wishing StarOct 29 '10 at 19:42

No, there isn't. This upgrades your whole release, using apt. Packages marked as dependent on the new kernel will force you to install it. However you are free to delete it afterwards.
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wishiOct 29 '10 at 19:47

ok, in that case, how do i delete it after upgrade (and booting into the old kernel to get there)? would deleting the newer kernel restore the older one automatically? and would it return the files virtualbox keeps looking for under /etc/? if so then my problem would be solved!
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Wishing StarOct 29 '10 at 19:50